People can take several steps to protect themselves and their loved ones and increase their chances of surviving a fire.

Every household should develop a fire escape plan and practice it several times a year and at different times of the day.

Include two ways to get out of every room and consider escape ladders for sleeping areas or homes on the second floor or above.

Pick a place outside for everyone to meet and make sure everyone knows where it is.

Practice that home fire drill until everyone in the household can do it in less than two minutes.

Install smoke alarms on every level of the home, inside bedrooms and outside sleeping areas. Test them every month and replace the batteries at least once a year.

Fire experts agree that people may have as little as two minutes to escape a burning home before it’s too late to get out.

More than forty percent (42 percent) of Americans feel confident they can escape their burning home in two minutes. Most parents (69 percent) believe their children would know what to do or how to escape with little help.

The problem with these assumptions is that less than half of parents (48 percent) with children ages 3-17 have talked to their families about fire safety.

Only a third (30 percent) of families with children have identified a safe place to meet outside the home.

Less than one in five families with children (18 percent) have actually practiced home fire drills.

Seven times a day, someone in this country dies in a home fire. Just in the past month, three lives have been lost in Wisconsin alone. For more information, please visit redcross.org/firesafety

January is National Blood Donor Month and this year, American Red Cross supporters have a new way to help save lives through blood and platelet donation with the Sleeves Up virtual blood drive.

SleevesUp is a first-of-its-kind website that lets you create a virtual blood drive and encourage colleagues, friends and family members to give blood or platelets, or make a financial donation – no matter where they are located across the country.

Creating a SleevesUp campaign is a simple four-step process:

Create an account at org/SleevesUp or log in with an existing Facebook or Twitter account.

Personalize the campaign with video, pictures or your personal story.

Set a goal and timeframe for the campaign.

Invite others to join the campaign via email or social media networks, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

National Blood Donor Month has been observed in January since 1970 and recognizes the importance of giving blood and platelets while honoring those who roll up a sleeve to help patients in need. The winter months can be especially difficult to collect enough blood and platelets to meet patient needs. Inclement weather can result in blood drive cancellations, and seasonal illnesses, like the flu, can prevent some donors from making or keeping appointments to give.

Blood donors with all blood types, particularly O negative, A negative and B negative, and platelet donors are needed to ensure blood is available for patients. If you haven’t made a donation appointment yet for 2015, do it now at redcrossblood.org. Then, check out SleevesUp and invite others to join you making a lifesaving donation.

FedEx Air & Ground Players of the Year

Vote for Aaron!

Vote for the NFL’s top air and ground performers!

One top passing performance can make a huge difference. So can one top rushing performance. Cast your vote now for the FedEx Air & Ground® NFL Players of the Year. FedEx will also make a $25,000 donation in each winning player’s name to American Red Cross chapters in their teams’ cities. The funding is used to support disaster relief and a variety of urgent humanitarian needs of the American Red Cross.FedEx will announce the 2014 FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Year winners at the “4th Annual NFL Honors” awards show in Arizona, a two-hour primetime special to air nationally on Jan. 31 on NBC the night before Super Bowl XLIX.

Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers

Rodgers finished the season with a 112.2 passer rating and is the only player in NFL history to register a 100-plus rating in six consecutive seasons. Rodgers finished the season with 38 touchdown passes. He ended the season with zero interceptions at home, where the Packers averaged 39.8 points per game. Rogers was nominated for FedEx Air Player of the Week five times, winning twice.

Don’t forget your furry friends. Bring pets indoors. If they can’t come inside, make sure they have enough shelter to keep them warm and that they can get to unfrozen water.

Remember the three feet rule. If you are using a space heater, place it on a level, hard surface and keep anything flammable at least three feet away – things such as paper, clothing, bedding, curtains or rugs.

Requires supervision – Turn off space heaters and make sure fireplace embers are out before leaving the room or going to bed.

Don’t catch fire! If you are using a fireplace, use a glass or metal fire screen large enough to catch sparks and rolling logs.

Protect your pipes. Run water, even at a trickle, to help prevent your pipes from freezing. Open the kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors to allow warmer air to circulate around the plumbing. Be sure to move any harmful cleaners and household chemicals out of the reach of children. Keep the garage doors closed if there are water lines in the garage.

Better safe than sorry. Keep the thermostat at the same temperature day and night. Your heating bill may be a little higher, but you could avoid a more costly repair job if your pipes freeze and burst.

The kitchen is for cooking. Never use a stove or oven to heat your home.

Use generators outside. Never operate a generator inside the home, including in the basement or garage.

Knowledge is power. Don’t hook a generator up to the home’s wiring. The safest thing to do is to connect the equipment you want to power directly to the outlets on the generator.